What is meant by the "Hidden figure of crime?"

The hidden figure of crime is the crimes that do not appear in the official crime statistics because it has not been reported by the police or not been reported to the police by the victim.

Crime statistics do not reflect or hold an accurate representation of the true amount of crime in the UK. This is because police never really report all the crimes that are reported to them by the public. This is probably because police take it upon themselves to decide what crimes are serious enough and worth reporting.

Muncie (1966) believes that victims of crime dont tend to report crimes because that may be afraid of the criminal or are ashames of the labels that may come with reporting their crime. For example, a woman may be embarressed or too…